Bomb Kills Doctor in Pakistani Border Region

By CARLOTTA GALL; Salman Masood contributed reporting.

Published: February 17, 2007

A doctor in charge of the polio immunization campaign in a tribal area was killed in a roadside bombing on Friday, apparently the victim of a creeping militancy in Pakistan's border regions.

The attack took place as the governor of Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province, Ali Muhammad Jan Aurakzai, denied in a news conference with foreign reporters here that there was ''Talibanization'' in the areas that border his province. He said life was getting back to normal in North and South Waziristan, two tribal regions where local and foreign militants have battled the Pakistani military.

The doctor, Abdul Ghani, was killed when his car hit a roadside bomb in the Bajaur tribal area, which straddles the border with Afghanistan, as he returned from a meeting with tribal elders to promote polio vaccination, local news media reported. Three guards accompanying him were wounded. The immunization campaign is unpopular in the tribal areas because of claims by Muslim clerics that it is a United States conspiracy to sterilize the local Muslim population.

NATO and American military officials based in Afghanistan have said that cross-border attacks have increased in North Waziristan since Mr. Aurakzai orchestrated a peace deal in September that allowed foreign and Pakistani militants to remain at large while the military scaled down operations.

Western diplomats have also expressed concern that Al Qaeda is continuing to plot terrorist campaigns from the mountainous tribal areas, and that the agreement has ensured the terrorists sanctuary.

Meanwhile, Pakistan has suffered a rash of incidents in the border region, including suicide bombings on government and military targets, attacks on girls' schools and nongovernmental groups, campaigns against video and music shops, and even orders for all men to grow beards.

Since a Jan. 16 airstrike on a presumed military hide-out in South Waziristan killed eight people, angering the local population, five suicide bomb attacks have killed at least 25 people. The airstrike so angered a militant leader, Baitullah Mehsud, that he vowed to take revenge with suicide bombers.

At his news conference here, Mr. Aurakzai, the governor, said he was awaiting the results of the investigations into the bombings before deciding what to do about Mr. Mehsud, who has denied any involvement in the attacks.

Mr. Aurakzai also said the attacks on schools and shops were ''isolated incidents.''

A recent report by the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based research organization, said militants have created a virtual Taliban mini-state in North and South Waziristan.

Map of Afghanistan highlighting Peshawar: A provincial official spoke with reporters in Peshawar yesterday.